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Old 08-29-2018, 04:52 AM
 
Location: Surfside Beach, SC
2,385 posts, read 3,657,636 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frostnip View Post
IMO there's a big difference between those little lies meant to avoid unnecessary conflict and hurt feelings (e.g. "I can't come to your party because I already have a commitment"), versus lies that are purely self-serving (e.g. "I can heal you with this snake oil!"), or lies about things the other person needs to know for their well-being (e.g. "You're crazy, the pool boy and I are just friends."). Obviously there are some fuzzy lines between categories, but this is just broadly speaking.

The first category, almost everyone does pretty regularly. The latter two, no, I wouldn't say everyone does.
I agree with you. Also, to my way of thinking, another and possibly the main thing to consider about lying to someone is intent. Is your intent to prevent harm or to cause harm - makes a big difference in how I view both the lie and the lier.
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Old 08-29-2018, 06:24 AM
 
4,927 posts, read 2,883,047 times
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Sam Harris published an interesting book about this:

Lying
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/19...m_bibl_vppi_i2

It's remarkable how often we lie:
Quote:
While the number of lies told by an individual during a day varies greatly, there have been scientific studies performed to get an accurate number. These studies indicate that the average individual lies more than 100 times a day.

From: https://www.reference.com/world-view...13ac29354113c#
The pathological version of this is sometimes caused by head trauma. I was seeing a very handsome man when I was an undergraduate. Problem was, he was constantly lying and bragging. His mother told me that when he was young he was badly beaten up by some thugs on the way home from school. She said he was never the same after that. Brain damage.

Quote:
About 40 percent of the study subjects had an evidence of central nervous system dysfunction [abstract], such as epilepsy, abnormal EEG findings, ADHD, head trauma or CNS infections.

From:
The Truth About Compulsive and Pathological Liars
https://psychologia.co/compulsive-an...logical-liars/
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Old 08-29-2018, 08:44 AM
 
Location: State of Transition
102,100 posts, read 107,266,232 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KaraZetterberg153 View Post
Sam Harris published an interesting book about this:

Lying
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/19...m_bibl_vppi_i2

It's remarkable how often we lie:


The pathological version of this is sometimes caused by head trauma. I was seeing a very handsome man when I was an undergraduate. Problem was, he was constantly lying and bragging. His mother told me that when he was young he was badly beaten up by some thugs on the way home from school. She said he was never the same after that. Brain damage.
Compulsive lying, lying even when there's no need to lie, can also be caused by emotional trauma.
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Old 08-29-2018, 08:48 AM
 
Location: Southern MN
11,974 posts, read 8,300,060 times
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I'm cautious about telling outright lies. First, I learned as a child that I'm not very good at it and second, I didn't like the consequences of that behavior. Well, really there's a third - I want to be thought of as an honest and trustworthy person.

But I've learned over the years that there are times when I don't deem it necessary to tell the whole truth about some situations. Maybe somebody I care about will be accidently hurt or there's something I feel I have the right to keep private. In those cases I misdirect or obfuscate or find some other way to avoid telling a lie.

I wouldn't call those things lying because lying involves uttering a false statement. I would admit to avoidance or evasiveness.

Where this doesn't work for me is in the case of Johari's Window - that part of ourselves which is unknown to us. Exactly how dishonest am I with myself? Do I ever tell myself something untrue and then believe it without recognizing it?

I can see how that could cause a lot of personal problems.
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Old 08-29-2018, 09:12 AM
 
Location: Phoenix, AZ
20,293 posts, read 14,520,361 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vrexy View Post
I agree with you. Also, to my way of thinking, another and possibly the main thing to consider about lying to someone is intent. Is your intent to prevent harm or to cause harm - makes a big difference in how I view both the lie and the lier.
I agree; I believe that intent is significant.

I find it interesting that the people I've known who are most upset about lying, will claim they "never lie" but they do. If I catch them at it, they try to pretend it never happened, or somehow it doesn't count as much as if they are lied TO by someone else. If someone tells me that they never lie, or they are "bad at it" then I often wonder if that is just a cover for the instances when they do lie. A lot of people do quite a bit of virtue-signaling that they are just oh so honest. Right.

And those who are most offended by any kind of lying, are often the ones who are not very socially savvy and cannot spot it when someone is lying, or are prone to believing what they want to hear so much that they don't do any critical thinking. I believe that empathy and the ability to detect falsehood can be closely linked. At least for me, I often can detect lies (though I may not know what the truth is, I can tell when a lie is being told) and yet I also have a sense of where the other person might be coming from, how they may be feeling, and I am compassionate that they felt the need to tell that lie for reasons that mattered to them.

So the ones I've known who are low on empathy, often believe what they are told, and cannot tell when they're being lied to, also don't really know how to manage their boundaries. They let in people who scream "red flag, red flag!" to me, because they choose to believe them. I've let in bad people before, too...but normally I knew that what I was doing was foolish, I just talked myself out of listening to my own better judgment. Like those times you know darn well you shouldn't buy or eat something, but you debate yourself, and your impulse to do it anyways wins, but then you kick yourself a bit about it later. I've done that with people. But at least I KNEW that nothing good was going to come of it.

I'm doing much better at heeding my wiser inner self these days.

I don't view all lying as morally wrong. I fully admit to having lied plenty of times, and I'm quite good at it. Although a bit part of that is knowing who can be lied to, and who cannot, and about what. But I see lies of any significance, as burdens you have to carry around. So I'm pretty mindful of whether it's worth it, and often it isn't.

When it comes to sparing feelings, often I can say things that are true...just not the entire and brutally frank truth. I am pretty good at tact and diplomacy when that is my chosen path. When I have lied, it has usually been because I didn't feel that the truth was safe to tell. I have dealt with enough abusive people who couldn't handle truths. Sometimes you lie to protect yourself or someone else from actual literal harm, and I cannot see that as an immoral act.
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Old 08-29-2018, 09:30 AM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,253 posts, read 84,190,273 times
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Gregory House, is that you?

(For those who don't get the reference, House was the title character in a TV show of the same name about an anti-social, painkiller-addicted doctor specializing in difficult diagnoses, and "Everybody lies" was a signature line of his that usually played into solving that week's mystery illness.)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCDWpfXLdsk
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Old 08-29-2018, 09:37 AM
 
Location: Tip of the Sphere. Just the tip.
4,540 posts, read 2,751,508 times
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I don't trust people who claim 100% honesty.


IMO such claims indicate some combination of the following:

1. Lack of insight
2. Capacity for self-delusion
3. Deliberate and self-serving dishonesty


Now maybe there are people out there who never lie (and by definition would truthfully claim exactly that). But I've never met a verifiable example of that who was also a functional adult.
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Old 08-29-2018, 09:38 AM
 
4,178 posts, read 3,375,662 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Frostnip View Post
IMO there's a big difference between those little lies meant to avoid unnecessary conflict and hurt feelings (e.g. "I can't come to your party because I already have a commitment"), versus lies that are purely self-serving (e.g. "I can heal you with this snake oil!"), or lies about things the other person needs to know for their well-being (e.g. "You're crazy, the pool boy and I are just friends."). Obviously there are some fuzzy lines between categories, but this is just broadly speaking.

The first category, almost everyone does pretty regularly. The latter two, no, I wouldn't say everyone does.
Why yes, that dress DOES make you look fat.

'Zat what you meant?
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Old 08-29-2018, 09:44 AM
 
Location: State of Transition
102,100 posts, read 107,266,232 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vrexy View Post
I agree with you. Also, to my way of thinking, another and possibly the main thing to consider about lying to someone is intent. Is your intent to prevent harm or to cause harm - makes a big difference in how I view both the lie and the lier.
What about the people who lie to self-aggrandize? There's a lot of that around. There's no "harm" done there, unless their lying convinces you to go into a business deal with them, hire them to do a job they can't do, and the like.
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Old 08-29-2018, 09:48 AM
 
Location: State of Transition
102,100 posts, read 107,266,232 times
Reputation: 115908
Quote:
Originally Posted by turkey-head View Post
I don't trust people who claim 100% honesty.


IMO such claims indicate some combination of the following:

1. Lack of insight
2. Capacity for self-delusion
3. Deliberate and self-serving dishonesty


Now maybe there are people out there who never lie (and by definition would truthfully claim exactly that). But I've never met a verifiable example of that who was also a functional adult.
Or, maybe like Lodestar, posting above, they're people who value telling the truth and being credible and reliable. Maybe that's important in their value system, so they make a conscious effort to avoid being untruthful. I don't know why this seems inconceivable to some people.
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